The present invention relates broadly to a transport system for transporting textile bobbins to winding stations and, more particularly, to such transport systems that incorporate control members for controlling the transport of bobbin tube support members along supply conveyors to winding station conveyors.
In several known transport arrangements for transporting tube support members to textile winding machines, the tube support members are individually transported on conveyor belts with lateral guides maintaining the tube support members in a defined path. U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,329 discloses an improvement in this type of tube support member transport arrangement in which an endless belt cyclically reciprocates to continuously transport tube support members past the entrances to winding station conveyors which each transport tube support members to a winding station of the textile winding machine. These winding station conveyors each include endless belts whose top runs extend sufficiently into the transport path of the tube support members being transported by the reciprocating endless belt of the supply conveyor that the tube support members are drawn onto the winding station conveyors, unless a sufficient reserve of tube support members is on a winding station conveyor that the last tube support member prevents entry of another tube support member, which then continues its reciprocation on the supply conveyor until it reaches a winding station conveyor having space to receive it. In this arrangement, the system must be dimensioned so that when a full complement of tube support members has been received on the winding station conveyor, the last tube support member prevents the entry of tube support members being reciprocated on the supply conveyor but without extending so far into the path of the tube support members on the supply conveyor as to impede their movement. However, this known arrangement does not provide adequate flexibility reconfiguring a conveyor system as the winding station conveyor must be of a length that is a multiple of the length of tube support members.
German Patent Document DE 41 16 555 A1 discloses a type of control that blocks tube support members from entering winding station conveyors by blocking movement of tube support members on the supply conveyor, which arrangement would not be adaptable to use with a reciprocating supply conveyor as a tube support member could not continue past a winding station conveyor and the blocking element would not prevent entry into the winding station conveyor of a tube support member being transported in one of the reciprocating directions.
Another apparatus for controlling tube support members entering a winding station conveyor is disclosed in German Patent Document DE-OS 36 09 071 which describes a restraint element for tube support members which is actuated by an external control device. A sensor that detects the passage of a tube support member or a bobbin request signal from the winding station activates the control device which mechanically triggers a barrier which is erected to prevent entrance of tube support members onto the branch conveyor.
Accordingly, improvements are desirable in assemblies of this type for controlling entry of tube support members onto winding station conveyors of textile winders from reciprocating supply conveyors, which allow for the use of winding station conveyors of any length, and do not require external control devices, and are simple in construction and reliable in operation.